Duck Dynasty and the World, Part 2: Syria

[This is the second part of a 2-part piece 3-part piece on the response of Christians to the Duck Dynasty situation; the third part is now the prayer for peace for Syria, Gaza, South Sudan, and North Korea.]

When I think about the attention given to the Duck Dynasty response, though, the thing that upsets me is how often the news discusses it before Syria.  An actual war with significant consequences for religious freedom for Christians in the Middle East is bumped so we can discuss whether an actor - who likely has a contract provision allowing for his suspension in circumstances just like this - is being persecuted because his employer is suspending his presence on TV (not even his primary income source) after insulting members of the audience.  

I’ve wanted to discuss Syria for the past few days. I started these blog posts long before Phil whats-his-name destroyed the internet – or at least my Facebook feed. I can’t stand what I see as the indifference people have towards the situation facing my friends and their families. 

Before I go further, I feel the need to explain a little about Syria to combat stereotypes people may have in their head. Like Lebanon, Syria has actually been a pretty safe country for Christians, on the relative scale of persecution of Christians world wide – or the relative scale of the persecution faced by minority religious believers in most states, including Muslims in Christian-dominant states and atheists and agnostics in a slew of states.  But back to Syria… Christians are a smaller part of the population than they are in Lebanon – about 10% for Syria while Lebanese Christians are almost 40% of the population there - and the Christians in Syria face dire consequences from this conflict. Christians are targeted by multiple sides in the conflict there, and if extremists win the war, Christian refugees may feel completely unable to return.

But all of that is one small part of the story in Syria. 

I’ve never been to Syria, but I have been lucky enough to end up with amazing Syrian friends, both Muslims and Christians. So when I think about Syria, it’s their faces I see.  It’s their families I think about.  It’s their communities I pray for. Their whole communities.

The last few days my mind and heart have been pre-occupied with those friends, and the people in Syria who are unable to leave and find safe refuge elsewhere.  The situation in Syria is grave. For those who would flee, though, the situation in Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan may be just as bad.

There's been snow on the ground in the refugee camps, and the winter is expected to get worse.  The tents in the camps, though, are not made for snow - or for the extreme cold.  There aren't enough mattresses for people - or enough food and supplies.  

This, of course, encourages some people to stay in dangerous situations. If the options are living in danger in a place they know or living in danger in a place they don’t, many are likely to choose the former.  In Syria, that often means staying in cities where they risk dying of starvation.  Or dying from barrel bombs. Or from the cold. Or just dying -because they don't have the means to live.

The scene sounds like something out of The Hunger Games, minus the televised audience and the potential for one person to win food and a reprieve for their entire community.

I've been thinking a lot about the snow in Syria and the refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan. Snow changes things.  

The temperature in my parents’ house is set at 71F/21.6C. Outside the house, the ground was covered by several inches of snow and ice until it rained last night. If the house dips to 69F/20C here, I can feel it. It means the timing mechanism on my parents’ heating had kicked in and I have to go fix it. I wear warm-ish clothes – sweatshirts and thick socks – and I have blankets wrapped around me. Right now, an electric fireplace is running nearby. Yet, when the snow is on the ground, I can feel those two degrees of difference. 

In the UK summer, 20C (69F) feels just fine to me. I would like it to be 22C (72F), but I’m okay with it being 20. In the Cleveland winter, 69F (20C) makes me reach for hot chocolate. It makes me find another blanket and turn up the heat a little.

Snow changes things.

What must it feel like, then, for the refugees who live in tents and sleep on mattresses in below freezing temperatures?  

1.4 million people will live in the refugee camps. 

Another 7.6 million will spend their winters in need in Syria itself. They will survive - or not - based on the provision of international aid.

Some read the stories of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and think, “Not our problem.”  Or worse, “there but by the grace of God…” 

But, it’s not the grace of God.  It’s a political choice.  It’s a political choice by the international community.  It’s a political choice by the US.

Why must refugees sleep in tents not designed for the cold?  Because Western leaders, amongst others, aren’t willing to offer resettlement options to those in need.  Because we won’t fund the UNHCR’s response in a meaningful way that would allow for something better than what is being offered.  Because it’s easy to get distracted by the shiny, sexy things of war – chemical weapons; and disputes at the UN – rather than think about the individuals on the ground, who have fled and who need us to be their neighbors, to serve them as Christ served us.

There are one million Syrian refugees in Lebanon (there are also Palestinian refugees that predate the Syrian ones). One million Syrian refugees.  It’s only 1/9 of the Syrians in need of humanitarian assistance, and yet it represents 1/4 of Lebanon’s total population. Lebanon only has 4.425 million people, but it is being asked to house one million of its neighbors in need of help.

In comparison, during the last financial year and according to data from the UN, the US granted asylum to approximately 25,300 (p. 46) while our July 2012 population was 313 million+.  So, we granted asylum to refugees representing .008%** of our population while Lebanon is housing refugees that make up 1/4 of its population. 

We also granted resettlement to some people – allowing them to apply to enter the country as refugees.  We almost doubled the number of asylum grants with refugee resettlement.  58,238 in 2012. In total, while Lebanon took in a million people, the United States – whose national pride takes the form of a statute that literally says “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free” – we took in 83,538 people.  That’s .0266% of our total population.  

We're not alone in our pathetic response to the Syrian refugee crisis - many other countries share the blame.  But we share it, too. Globally, the world rejected almost twice as many applications for asylum as they offered. 438,000 claims were rejected but only 261,900 people were granted asylum. (p.46)  

At a time when the global humanitarian crisis was at an all-time high, we – as an international community – rejected 2x as many claims for asylum as we granted.

When we do this to other human beings, we are leaving them impoverished.  In turn, we impoverish ourselves. 

Albert Einstein, Marlene Dietrich, Sigmund Freud, Hannah Arendt, Bela Bartok, Frederic Chopin, Victor Hugo, and former President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki were all refugees. The US also has two former Secretary of States – one Democrat and one Republican – it gained from granting refugee status: Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger.

We lose something when we leave people like this behind – when we care so little about those in need. We lose the potential, but we also lose ourselves, and we lose our faith. 

The book of James says “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?  In the same way, faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead.” 

I know this passage raises issues for Christians – a debate over whether you can be saved by faith alone or need works to be saved.  That misses the whole point of the passage, though.  James isn’t discussing how one obtains salvation – yes, he uses the word ‘saved’ but the totality of what surrounds this passage indicates it’s not about salvation per se, but about what true faith means.  Faith should be motivating for us. And what does faith call us to do?  It calls us to love.  To love God and to love our neighbor. 

When we fail to offer refuge to those in need, we have failed to love. And when we fail to love, we have failed to show faith.  We have failed to live by faith. 

It’s easy to want to bomb something in the hopes that stops the war.  That’s a one-and-done kind of “service.” It’s cheap and easy and doesn’t require us to follow up. It allows us to wash our hands shortly after we’ve bombed people.

True love, though, isn’t easy.  And true love is what the Church is called to do.  

True love stretches beyond race or religion or ethnic identity.  True love is grand and encompassing.  True love means opening our borders to those looking to resettle.  And not for a ridiculously small 83,000 people.  We should love big – love strong – and open up our arms to really, truly help people. During the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time, we should be looking for ways to find Syrians to bring into our communities.  Anything less than that is not worthy of claims that we act in Christ’s name.

A friend of mine - a Christian from the Middle East - wrote the following, and I want to use it as the start of my prayer for Syria:

This Christmas I sincerely hope that nativity scenes will not be baby in the manger but the holy family as asylum seekers to Egypt... 

Yes, next time you hear demonization of asylum seekers as 'illegal migrants', do remember.. Christ and his family were asylum seekers who entered Egypt illegally fleeing for their lives after baby Jesus' birth. 

I pray that we remember how connected we are to the plight of those seeking asylum. We need to pray for those who are there in Syria - who are fleeing, and who are staying.  We need to pray that we become better advocates for them, and that we speak out more frequently on their behalf. We need to pray that we become better at responding to this crisis.  We pray for those in refugee camps, and those who, because of the conditions in the refugee camps, are staying in Syria.  We pray for those who are starving in Syria, and those who are freezing both in the camps and in Syria. We pray for our leaders, who decide who and how many to let into our borders in the midst of crisis.  We pray for those working in aid agencies and for the Red Cross and Red Crescent, that they are protected in their work, and are able to reach those most in need.  We pray that their coffers overflow with the funds necessary to alleviate suffering.  And we pray for peace.  For a durable, honest peace that impacts all the way down. That we encourage and facilitate that peace.  That we truly love the Syrians, and that we demonstrate that love in all we do.

** When I first typed this, I made a mistake and said .0008% but it's just .008%.

Update:  I always enjoy moments when I agree with my friend Matt.  This is one of those issues, so I'd encourage those still intent on defending Phil - and those interested in Chrisitan thoughts on this - to check out his post here.

Duck Dynasty and the World: Part 1

I was supposed to do a situation for prayer a week, but I failed.  Massively, publicly failed.  I blame my PhD, and a book chapter, and a book, and multiple workshops, and a slew of other things, but ultimately I failed. So, I’m sorry.  One of the nice things about being a Christian, though, is that I’m acutely aware of how frequently I fail but how much I live in grace and love even when I fail.  Still, I’m trying this again – and just in time for Christmas.

Unfortunately, though, a lot of other Christians failed this week as well so they’re stuck discussing whether a rich guy on a popular TV show should be suspended from the show for saying things that were hurtful and dismissive of two vulnerable groups in our society – homosexuals and black Americans, who are racial minorities. In this discussion, somehow it is Christians who are being persecuted rather than the two groups that are actually vulnerable in our society. 

And by vulnerable, I’m discussing power dynamics and discrimination; not anything else that people will want to misconstrue vulnerability as. Statistically, blacks have a smaller share of economic and political power than whites and have therefore been subject to systemic discrimination. Statistically, the LGBT community have less power and are subject to rampant discrimination in civil rights and economic opportunities. 

Christians on the other hand?  Puh-lease.  

I’ve been around significant parts of the world – every continent but Catholic-dominant South America and our-slightly-more-rednecky-cousins in Australia – and there are few places where Christians wield as much power, and as much freedom to do and say whatever they want to do and say, as the US.  Yet, somehow whenever people suffer social consequences for saying things that hurt others, Christians in America feel they are the most persecuted people in the world.

To those in the Church who think Duck Dynasty is what we should be discussing, I respond solely with this article and a long list of things the US Church should care about a lot more than Duck Dynasty and anything associated with it:

-        A South Sudanese town was just taken over by rebels. Three UN peacekeepers, along with a large, untold, number of civilians were killed.   South Sudan is a newly established Christian-majority state formed after decades of religious-based violence – where persecution actually meant persecution.  Christians had been killed for their faith, arrested, tortured, beaten, etc. Now, the new state faces another armed conflict – this time both sides dominated by Christians killing each other for power, with ethnic divisions used to justify the killing – that threatens the future of the country.  So, when we pray about persecution, let’s pray for those who have been persecuted for their faith and who are now really being persecuted for their ethnicity.  Let’s pray for, and speak out against, South Sudan.

-        40,000 Gazans have fled their homes from flooding.  You know those beautiful pictures of Jerusalem in snow that were playing around the world? Well, that same snowstorm left an area the UN has describedas "one of the most densely populated areas in the world: with 40,000 new homeless people.  1/3 of the 1.4-1.7 million people in Gaza are currently refugees." They have no place to go – Egypt has closed its borders and Israel does not let many from Gaza into Israel, even for humanitarian reasons. Israel also unilaterally decides how much aid – food, fuel, blankets, housing materials – can come into Gaza.  When we pray for God’s kingdom come on Earth, let’s pray that those in Gaza receive the humanitarian assistance they need. That they receive God’s blessings here, and that we as Christians work to serve them as Christ served others, that we look for avenues and opportunities to ensure greater security for food and housing and health care.  Let’s pray for, and speak out against, the crisis in Gaza.

-        When Kim Jong Un executed his uncle, it was an indication of a coming reign of terror for North Koreans worse than they’ve faced in the past, and on par with the very worst dictators in the world. Then he threatens South Korea (by fax mind you), and that threat means the US may need to go to war. We have a treaty with South Korea that requires us to go into war for their self-defense.  So, let’s pray for, and speak out for, peace. Let’s pray for a changed attitude in North Korea, and for an opening up of space on that.

So, when I hear Christians in the US talk about how we need to be vocal on the rights of the Ducky Dynasty thing, I just think… is this really what the Church needs to be focused on?  And the thing is that these aren’t even the situations that I find most troubling in my heart right now…

I initially did this as one long post, but it's too long. So, I'll continue in a separate post.

Praying for Peace: Palestine-Israel

So, this is the first of my posts on praying for peace, and starting with the Israel-Palestinian conflict (or the Palestinian-Israeli conflict) is an intimidating one to start with.

I have so many people I love on both sides of this conflict. Friends I hold near and dear to my heart, and friends I would never want to hurt or upset.  But at times I think you can't discuss this conflict honestly without upsetting someone. Just using the names "Israel" and "Palestine" can trigger emotions as one side denies the existence of the other (I cannot emphasize this enough, but this is true of people on both sides of the conflict).

It is for that very reason, though, that I need to start here, with this conflict, as my first "Praying for Peace."

The land is the land of my faith.  Jesus wept there, in the town of Bethany, which is now known as al-Eizariya ("The Place of Lazarus") in Palestine's West Bank. He pulled Lazarus from death and told Martha to put away her chores and listen to his teachings. It was there that he accepted the offering of a woman that others scorned. The land is the land of my faith, where Christ was willing to die.  Where he was buried.  Where he revealed himself again, resurrected. The land is the land of my faith.

And in my lifetime it has never known peace.

Some say it has not ever known peace.  I reject that assertion. The land was occupied prior to 1948 - a British and Ottoman exchange of rights and privileges over who could collect taxes and impose sanctions, use its water and its resources.  But the communities there knew peace within themselves. I have friends whose families farmed those lands, whose parents and grandparents sewed clothing for people living on that land regardless of their faith or ethnicity.  These friends are Christian, Muslim and Jewish, and their ancestors once lived much closer to each other than these friends live now.

I have other friends in this conflict. Friends whose families moved to Israel after 1948; friends who are moving to Israel now.  I have other friends who grew up in the Palestinian IDP camps, never able to know a true home. Both claim the same land as their own, their understanding of history as truth.

My friend Murad, who is one my newest friends but one I am certain will last a lifetime (assuming he doesn't disown me after this post), has written on the concept and nature of citizenship. To understand what he writes, you need to understand the meaning of three Arabic words: Watan, Mowatana, and Mowatin.  Watan is the "home you live in." But as Murad explains "The Watan is not just about the history or the geography, it also becomes a creator of the self, and an important source in creating the ego and the collective self.  It becomes the glasses we look through towards ourselves and the world, and forms a part of culture." Maybe it is best understood as our homeland, the place where we identify ourselves with, though I think the English word still lacks something.

Mowantana is also not clearly translatable, though it is often defined as citizenship. As Murad explains, though, Mowantana is broader, meaning Muslims who by virtue of their faith have a right to belong. Finally, Mowatin are citizens, or the members of the community who belong.

The complexity surrounding these words becomes important when you consider Murad's broader conclusions about Palestinian citizenship, which I'm going to quote at length because they are really beautiful and they tell us so much about this conflict:

"The Palestinians lose their Watan, but they still are attached to it even though they are living in it as Mowatin. The Palestinian generation creates the difference between the Watan and Mowatin and they can distinguish between them very well.
. . .
In the Palestinian context, the Watan is the imaginary part, because it is missing from the reality. So, the Palestinians draw the Watan in their imagination wishing and working to move it into their reality. Here we can notice the correlation between the lack of the Watan in reality and the imagination of each person and their will to make it real. This depends on each one's belonging and believing in these terms. 

Why do we feel that we have to be tied to one place? 

In an attempt to redefine these terms, these questions may help you to analyze your point of view: What does stability mean to you? Does stability change from one period to another in a humans' life? What does it mean to belong? Does belonging to something mean you feel responsibility towards it?   

Tell me what the Watan is for you, and I tell you who you are."

Now, I am afraid he will hate me for what I am about to write (though he's a very good man, and he should be super flattered with how much of him I quoted, so I'm hoping he'll forgive me... eventually), but....

While I have never heard this sentiment expressed as beautifully by my Jewish friends of Israel, I have heard it expressed all the same. That longing for the place you belong.  That desire to be reunited with your heritage, your ancestry, your family, your community; the desire to unite your past and your future.

It is not something I can relate to particularly well, and I think many in the US and Western Europe would have difficulty truly understanding this sentiment. I feel connected to Slovenia and Germany, where my mom's grandparents were born, but it's not that same grounding or gravitational force for my life.  There is, however, a piece of farmland in Western Ohio that my family has owned since Ohio was "settled" by Europeans.

We are the settlers to that land. And while I realise the long-standing claims the indigenous of Ohio have to that land, it is so dear to my family. It plays a strange role in the identity of my immediate family.  It's land shared between 3/4 of my great-grandparents' heirs, and it isn't even mine yet. My brother, sister and I will inherit our share at one of the worst moments of our lives: when both my parents have passed.  My father has already told us he will haunt us if we ever even think of selling that land. That land will be our connection when all else has left us but each other.  And it's a connection we'll share with our own children, probably with the very same promise of haunting them forever.

And yet, I know that my inheritance of that land is actually a source of pain for Native Americans. I don't usually rely on Wikipedia for facts (though the footnotes are sometimes awesome), but I was curious about who had been in this land before it became ours.  Reading the story, though, is hard for a human rights activist (perhaps particularly one who also has Cherokee Indian heritage). By 1750, the county where our land is was occupied by members of eleven Native American tribes. After the Native Americans were defeated in 1795, they were supposed to have the land my family now owns as their place to be.  In 1820, it was organized into a county with 12 townships. In one of those townships is my land. I hate how it became my land, but still... it is my land.  It is the inanimate object with which I have my deepest connection.

When I feel lost in the world - and I mean truly lost, unsure of where I belong in the world - I rely on the knowledge that my family loves me and that land represents them, strangely in many ways even more than the home I grew up in because the land is representative of my broader family: my aunt Peg, who whispers to me how happy she is with what I'm doing; and my Uncle Mike, who took me aside once to tell me he doesn't understand half of what I'm doing, disagrees with me on the half he does, but he's still proud of my for doing what I do; my great-aunt Jo, who came to my law school graduation because my own grandmother was too sick to remember it; my uncle Johnny who left us much too young but whose spirit I have felt quite clearly protecting me at times while I drive; and my great-grandma Kate, who my father tells me I'm just like. Quite honestly, I don't know that I could pick out the actual property without my dad or brother along, but still... that land is my land, my family, and the idea that I would ever have to give it up - even though I deplore how it came to be ours - it would be heartbreaking and I would absolutely fight tooth and nail for it (probably not with actual weapons but I'm a lawyer... in the US that might be better than a weapon!).

What I feel can only be a small portion of the feelings associated with land like Israel and Palestine, whose recent past is so deeply intertwined with conflict and displacement. Israel was born from the Holocaust, from the reality that the Jewish people had few safe havens in the world, and felt most secure with the notion of living in community on the land of their ancestors.  But taking that land required conflict and the expulsion of the Palestinians. Land ownership continues to be an issue. I was intending to link to this very specific article about property issues in Jerusalem, which I read when it was first published, but when I searched keywords associated with it, I just found story after story after story about the conflicts associated with land [the background to this one was the hardest for me to read]. Perhaps one of the more relevant ones was this, in which the then 80-year-old mayor of Jerusalem (an Israeli who immigrated to Palestine in 1934) blasted new settlements in the "Arab Quarter" of Jerusalem:

"Does anyone seriously think that there will not always be Muslims and Christians in Jerusalem, that we can ignore their rights and expect the world to respect our own?" the 80-year-old Mayor, in office since 1965, said in a statement.
An Israeli newspaper quoted him today as saying, "We are driving the Arabs crazy and forcing them to hate us." 

Israel has the power now, so it is often Jewish Israelis taking land previously belonging to Palestinians, but in another time that power dynamic could shift. I can only imagine how much fear and anxiety this causes the Jewish people living in Israel.  I know how much anxiety and anger the dispossession causes the Palestinians.  And fear. Fear that they will never see their homeland in their lifetime. Fear that they will always be the newest "people without a land."  Fear that they have lost themselves, their community, and their ancestry.  Fear that their life will always include outsiders who control so much more of their existence than they do themselves.

Fear drives anger, and anger hatred, and hatred violence, and violence conflict.  All from a desire for self; a desire to realize the connection with one's homeland, with one's Watan.

It is a common desire for the Palestinians and the Israelis. That very reality is what makes this conflict so tense, so personal, so seemingly without end.

But I believe it will have an end.  I am praying that the leaders will have wisdom and see a solution, and then be brave enough to pursue that solution.

I don't want to have simplified the conflict down to just land.  There are serious and grave human rights issues here. Palestinians are often shot seemingly without cause, their ability to get to medical care and their ability to get to school or work is often hampered.  Israelis fear incursions, particularly from Gaza but also from neighbouring Lebanon and Syria.  It is tense and with each new death, there is new anger, and perhaps also a deeper connection to one's ancestral struggle - something that again these two sides share.

I don't have a solution that I can propose. I am neither Palestinian nor Israeli and my connection to the conflict comes only from my faith and from my friends. The solution will need to be internal; a coming together of two peoples with the same desire and the same fear to alleviate the other's fear and realize both desires.  It seems impossible.  But everything seems impossible until someone does it.

It is not the impossibility that worries me - it is the lack of courage to make this happen that worries me. Courage to admit that one's own side has not always been right or good or fair or just in this conflict. Courage to develop a solution that may not meet the desire of everyone but will meet the needs of everyone.  Courage to see the other side as a full, real human being with their own truth and their own reality and their own human worth and value.  And courage to stand up to the interests of one's own side to develop a plan and to implement it.

Children know in a way adults sometimes forget that human beings are, at our heart, the same. Our languages and clothing and music and food preparation may differ, but our feelings are universal. Our fears our universal.  I am praying that courage will be too.

And that is what I'm asking from you as part of this first praying for peace.  I am asking that you pray for courage for individuals and leaders in this conflict in identifying, developing, and realising a solution. Pray for the individuals and the leaders on both sides, not just the side you normally favour.  Pray for the individuals whose lives will be affected by whatever decision is developed. Pray for Peace.


I know as a Christian, I am supposed to go into our closest and prayer, but how are you supposed to encourage people to pray about something if you don't talk about it and talk about praying?  That's the very issue I face here. But if you want to pray over this, and you're unsure how to do that, this is a short version of the prayer I will inevitably be reciting over and over this Saturday and you're welcome to use it:

Dear God, I ask you to bless the people and the leaders of Israel and Palestine. I ask you to help them find a solution.  Help them identify it, develop it, and realise it. Give them the courage and strength necessary to find communal peace, and through communal peace eventually individual acceptance and peace with one's life and surroundings. Help the people in Israel and Palestine to see each other as your children, and help them to value the human worth in one another. All these things I pray in your name, Amen.

Israeli Settlements and the Plight of Palestinian Christians

The Israeli news agency Hareetz is carrying a story today about the door of a Christian monastery being lit on fire. Some of my friends would expect this to be from Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or Egypt.  It's not.  It's from Latrun on the border of Israel and Palestine, land claimed by Israel as a result of the '67 war between it and most of its neighbors.

The arsonists left "graffiti tags" - markings similar to what a gang does - linking the attack and the recent eviction of an illegal Israeli settlement in Migron, West Bank. In essence, those tags were used to indicate to the community that breaking down illegal Israeli settlements will end up in retribution to the civilian society.

According to Hareetz, the settlement was "established through deceit, without a permit, and on privately-owned Palestinian land," without the owner's permission, "dispossess[ing] the land's rightful owners for more than a decade." The tags can be seen below and Hareetz says they translate to "Jesus is a pig" and "Migron."

From AFP at Hareetz

The government of Israel apparently went through a period of dissociative identity disorder (sometimes called multiple personalities) where the justice branch ordered the eviction and restoration of rights for about a decade while the executive branch provided "generous assistance" to the settlers.

For Migron, it took intervention by an Israeli NGO, Peace Now, to help restore the rights of the landowners.

The graffiti alone might not be enough to tie Migron to the attacks on the Latrun Monastery - Google maps tells me Latrun is about 25.5km to the west of Jerusalem while The National tells me Migron is 15km north of Jerusalem, but thankfully there's an asshat who was willing to tie it all together. According to the Hareetz article on the attack, "Baruch Marzel, a right-wing activist, connected the attack to the evacuation of Migron. 'We said that evacuating Migron could fan the flames. There’s an entire community that feels very bitter,' said Marzel."

It's not the first "price tag" attack against Christian churches, either. "‎'In February, similar anti-Christian graffiti was found sprayed on the walls of the Greek church at a monastery in Jerusalem’s Valley of the Cross, and a Baptist Church in central Jerusalem. In both incidents, the graffiti included phrases such as 'Jesus is dead,' 'Death to Christians,' 'Mary is a prostitute,' and 'price tag.'"

Yes, in response to being forced to comply with the law, the response has apparently been to threaten death to Christians.  It's been to desecrate the walls of Christian holy sites and to set them on fire. As I said on facebook when I first saw this story, "I know Jesus would forgive but I just want to say f*** off."  I know it's not very Christian of me, but sometimes my not-very-Christian self wins. But, I'll get back to the Christian-ness of it all in a second. I'm going to handle the legal part first. 

In response to the Migron eviction, Bejanmin Netanyahu echoed these multiple personalities of the Israeli government for the last ten years: "We are committed to respecting the rule of law and we are committed to strengthening the settlement enterprise."

To which I have to ask: how can you be committed to the rule of law and simultaneously committed to perpetuating illegal actions?

Now I tend to tread carefully when I wade into Israel-Palestine publicly because experience tells me that no matter what I say I can simultaneously be labelled pro-Israel and anti-Semitic, pro-Palestine and anti-Arab. Let's be clear: criticizing the government policies of Israel is not anti-Semitic.  If I can be pro-American (and I am; I love my homeland) and criticize both the Bush and Obama administrations, I can criticize the Israeli government without being anti-Israel or anti-Semitic (and I do disagree with MLK, Jr., as to whether being anti-Israel is the same thing as being anti-Semitic; as it happens, I'm neither, but I don't think the two are tied as much as people like to make them). But, literally having one conversation and being called both anti-Palestinian and anti-Semitic can sting a person - particularly a white American woman who likes to be culturally sensitive - almost into submission.

But I know that's what they want - and by "they" I mean everyone who has a stake in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine.  This includes leaders and religious / nationalistic zealots on both sides of the line.  So, I'm going to wade anyhow.

The Israeli settlements in the OPT are illegal.  There are no ifs, ands or buts about it.  Israel (as a government) likes to play a little international law loophole-ing - think G. W. Bush administration's classification of waterboarding as something other than torture - and claim that since the OPT did not have a "sovereign" before the 1967 conflict, then it's not actual "occupation" and therefore the settlements aren't illegal.

To explain a little further, international law forbids an occupying force from establishing settlements, permanently altering the borders or permanently taking land from the occupied territory.  There are a slew of other protections for those in occupations, mostly contained in the Geneva Conventions, to which Israel is a party. But, the definition of occupied land is land that previously belonged to another state.  As Israel is fond of pointing out, Palestine was never a state. It was a territory of the British government, who in the half-assed manner in which they left countries during their "decolonization period,"  left Palestine when the 1948 agreement became too complicated.  In doing so, they had followed through on the establishment of Israel but not on the establishment of the other state, Palestine. So, in the Israeli government's reasoning, no previous sovereign = no occupation = no illegality to the settlements.

Except here's the rub, Israel. It doesn't really matter if the OPT had a previous sovereign.  Successive UN Security Council resolutions have, in various ways, ordered Israel to stop building the settlements. Those resolutions are often invoked in subsequent resolutions and it's pretty much settled by the UN Security Council that settlements are illegal and must stop.  That they violate the 4th Geneva Convention, even taking into account Israel's legal arguments. As a member of the UN, Israel has "agree[d] to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter" (article 25).  That means even the ones they don't like.

More importantly - and thankfully something the Hareetz editorial on this issue points out - Israel itself has agreed to stop the settlements through the '93 Oslo Accords. Yes, it's true that the question of Israeli settlements - meaning those already established in 1993 - was to be decided by subsequent agreement. But, Israel recognized the right of Palestine to self-governance over the OPT. It agreed to withdraw its troops and to cede jurisdiction over the area.  In recognizing sovereignty and self-government of OPT, it means that Israel has no further justification or legal claim to establishing settlements without the agreement of the Palestinian government. None.  And, of course, Migron was, along with 23 other settlements, established after Sharon's election in 2001, well after the '93 accords.

Of course, Yitzhak Rabin was gunned down by a fanatic, and the Second Intifada started, and Oslo fell out of favor with both Palestinians and Israelis. but falling out of favor is not the same thing as the government repudiating or suspending the agreements.  You don't get to say "we're not abiding by the law" just because it's unpopular.  Otherwise, there's no point to having a law.

So, Netanyahu cannot simultaneously be committed to settlements and to the rule of law.  He has to choose one or the other.

Now, turning back to that Monastery in Latrun... It appears those responsible decided that since they were criminals (or supporting criminals), they'd go ahead and take it a step further and become terrorists. And yes, I intentionally used the word because that's what it is: terrorism.  It's the intentional targeting of a civilian place of worship in an attempt to manipulate the government or society into doing what you want through intimidation and fear. It's terrorism. Plain and simple.

And Baruch Marzel, the right-wing guy Hareetz quoted, is encouraging that terrorism.  He is, quite literally, a terrorist-lover (as opposed to those of us who think even terrorists get the right not to be tortured, which I think is being a law-lover, not a terrorist-lover).

I do feel the need here to put in an aside pointing out that I know many Israelis who do not condone these acts, and others who do not condone the settlements at all. Just like Christians and Muslims have terrorists who claim to be acting on behalf of the faith but are really acting on behalf of their own egos and political aspirations, so does Judaism and these are is.  Not all Israelis and not all Jews should be considered responsible for these acts.  But Baruch Marzel and his ilk should be.
 And this is what drives me insane about the evangelical movement in the US (let me say that I am a born-again, evangelical Christian so it's not an indictment of all evangelical Christians; just the movement as a movement).  For some unexplainable reason - which, according to multiple news reports about 5 years ago is actually explainable in that people think they're helping the Second Coming of Christ (as if someone who is omnipotent and all-powerful needs that kind of assistance) - the evangelical Christian community in the US regularly supports the concept of Israeli settlements.

They take little trips once a year with 20 people on a bus and go and visit an Israeli "outpost" and learn about the religiousness of the settlers and about the plight they have (i.e., having to fight off mean, scary Arabs who want their land back and want to push them from the land God Himself offered the settlers. And live without malls or entertainment venues. I don't know why but every time I see settlements discussed on US TV and by US evangelicals, the distance between the settlement and the nearest shopping / entertainment venue is discussed. It's really bizarre.).

They go to the church at Bethlehem to pray and maybe they meet a single Palestinian there, but mostly they just shuffle on and shuffle off their tourist buses. They don't really meet Palestinians and they definitely don't meet the Palestinian landowners who were dispossessed from their land for the settlements. In doing so, they miss out on actually meeting their Christian brothers and sisters who are harmed by the occupation and the settlements.

Yet, Christian Palestinians do suffer from the occupation, and not just as a consequence of other disputes, like the retribution at Latrun or the threat to kill Christians left at the Greek and bapitist churches and the Valley of the Cross monastery.

Christians do not have a "right of return" to Israel.  Neither do Palestinians. Only Jewish people have a "right of return" to Israel. This is a legal reality. So the Christians present in Israel and Palestine are those who predate 1948. There are likely also Christian converts, but this appears to make up a small percentage of Christians present in the two areas.

Principally, Palestinian Christians are of Arab ethnicity and face the same restraints and problems as other Palestinians. This means, amongst other things, that their travel is limited, and as a result many Christians in the area can't visit Jerusalem to see the holy sites there.  So if you're an American Christian, you have greater rights of pilgrimage to visit a site thousands of miles away than if that of a Palestinian Christian from Bethlehem. Think about it: from my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, it is 5983 miles (9626.65 km). From my friend's hometown of Bethlehem to Jerusalem it is only 5 miles (8.05 km). Yet, I am more entitled - and somewhat more likely! - to celebrate Easter at a holy site in Jerusalem than my brothers and sisters from Bethlehem.

60 Minutes recently highlighted this on a news segment (I've only read the transcript of the segment; I haven't watched it).  But the 60 Minutes story was a bit naive and factually wrong.  It claimed:

Christianity may have been born in the Middle East, but Arab Christians have never had it easy there, especially not today. In Iraq and Egypt, scores of churches have been attacked, hundreds murdered. In Syria, revolution seriously threatens Christian communities. The one place where Christians are not suffering from violence is the Holy Land: but Palestinian Christians have been leaving in large numbers for years.

Christians aren't immune from the violence being perpetrated in Israel and Palestine.  And Palestinian Christians aren't immune from the violence being directed at their Palestinian Muslim neighbors. Their land is being taken for settlement. They are being detained, tortured and killed for protesting the occupation or settlements. They suffer for the same reason: their claimed nationality and ethnicity. And, apparently, when someone wants to lash out at the Palestinians, it's easy to go ahead and burn the door of a Monastery in response.

Even with a rather light touch on the problems of Palestinian Christians, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren called the 60 Minutes' piece was a hatchet job, without having ever seen it because he made the complaint before it even aired! Subsequent to his complaint - and still before the story aired - he was interviewed and said something I still don't understand:

It seemed to me outrageous. Completely incomprehensible that at a time when these communities, Christian communities throughout the Middle East are being oppressed and massacred, when churches are being burnt, when one of the great stories in history is unfolding? I think it's-- I think it's-- I think you got me a little bit mystified.

So, the argument is that since churches are being threatened and burned in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere we should care about a little discrimination against our brothers and sisters in Palestine?  Do we get to care now that the Monastery at Latrun was burned?

The truth is our Palestinian brothers and sisters in Christ are being discriminated against. They suffer every day under the occupation, while those in the US who claim to know and love Christ - who claim to feel a special connection to Bethlehem every year at Christmas - ignore their suffering.  We praise the Israeli government for actions we should be condemning, and we encourage settlements that simply thrust our brothers and sisters into poverty and physical harm.

I don't think we should cherish one human being over another simply because of their religion, but Christians are admonished to pray for the persecuted in our faith. We are supposed to love them and support them and encourage their faith and their development. Instead, too many evangelical Christians in the US unthinkingly support the occupation and Israel's expansion into the territory, which is not just causing individual harm to individual Christians, but it's actually forcing Christians to flee the area, diminishing the Church's presence in its very holiest of lands.

It makes me sick and angry.



Now, I have to say this, which is a bit unrelated: I learned of this incident because I am very fortunate to be friends with Ziya Meral, a Turkish writer and researcher based in London, who fills my newsfeed up every day with stories like this. Much like how I let Jon Stewart find interesting and under-discussed US news for me, and then supplement the Daily Show with online newspapers, I pretty much do the same thing on the Middle East and freedom of religion issues by following Ziya's tweets and then supplementing that.

If you're interested in the Middle East - its politics, its people, its stories - or in issues relating to freedom of religion ("FOR"), I highly encourage you to like Ziya on facebook and follow him on twitter (yes, I linked to his twitter again in case you were too lazy to go back!).  He also shares up sometimes hilarious, non-Mid-East / FOR stuff, too, so if you don't care about the Middle East / FOR, you may still want to follow him.